Secret Scorpio Read Online Free

you not desire salvation and wealth and luxury in the here and now?”
    His voice sharpened, took on an undisguised note of contempt and anger — and a tinge of fear? My comrades withdrew from the little rickety gallery, but I stayed, listening.
    “You two, trident-men, brothers, you have been tainted with the falsehoods put about in the island. You know your island is called Can-thirda. Whatever it was called in the ancient days of the kingdom, ever since your island has been part of Vallia it has been called Can-thirda. Yet now you must call it Veliadrin. Why?”
    A certain grumbling rumble from his listeners brought a wolfish smile to his lips.
    “Aye! I well tell you why! Because the power-mad incubus, the Prince Majister of Vallia, decrees it! That is why. Some unknown master from no man knows where tells you your fate. He holds your future in his hand. Has he visited you? Have you seen him? No, and you have not seen his bitch of a wife, the Princess Majestrix, either!”
    My muscles jumped. I took a breath. But I remained lying still, watching and listening. Yes! Well may you who have followed my story marvel. But I remained still and did not leap down and choke this fellow’s throat a trifle to induce him to show proper respect for the most perfect woman in two worlds. And, I confess, I not only marveled at my own iron self-control, I actually relished it, as showing how I had matured and grown wise.
    “Some forgotten child they had, spawned from their evil union, this Princess Velia, dead and abandoned in some foreign country debarred from honest men’s knowledge. Who knows where she died? Who cares? Why should your island be called after the slut?”
    My fists gripped and my muscles trembled as a leem’s flanks tremble in the instant before he charges. But, despite all, I remained still.
    Through the confusion roaring away in my head I understood that my own private problems, my own petty pride, must not interfere or injure the interests of my people, their lands or the intangible debt I owe all those who look to me. If this is pride, so be it; if it is duty, so be it. To me, a simple sailor and fighting man, it was and remains a mere matter of common decency.
    So I battened down the hatches on my anger and made myself listen to what this fellow was saying. After all, there was more than a grain of truth in his rantings. . .
    If, because this priest of Chyyan insulted my Delia and our dead daughter Velia, I acted as I was wont and hurled myself down to choke him a little and bash the skulls of his ugly-faced guards, then I would forfeit the advantage of listening and learning in secret. Whoever had sent him would know that much of their designs were privy no more. I must force myself to swallow all that intolerant choler which makes of me a laughing stock, a fighting man and, sometimes, makes me do the right thing.
    “Look around you in your island of Can-thirda! Where are the slaves that once did your bidding, that worked for you and made the days light? Gone, all gone. And why? Because your new High Kov, this high and mighty Prince Majister of Vallia, this Strom of Valka, this Kov of Zamra, decrees that you honest working people shall no longer run slaves. Is this fair? Is this justice? Why should a man do his own hard labor, why should a woman slave in the kitchen when she might buy and thrash a slave to do the work for her? Tell me, brethren in the Great Chyyan, if this is a sample of the usage to which this so-puissant Dray Prescot puts you, then will you lie down beneath it? Will you give the tyrant the full incline? Will you be slave?”
    They yelled it back at him.
    “No!” And, “No! We will not bow down to Dray Prescot!”
    I fumed up there on the gallery. I didn’t want the famblys to bow to me. I’d already cut out all this fawning and inclining nonsense in Valka. But, equally, I did not want them buying and selling and flogging slaves either. This is the old conundrum, with an answer, and I